


In This Life

by kuriositet



Series: Free To Love [6]
Category: Spartacus Series (TV), Spartacus: War of the Damned
Genre: Alternate Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 05:43:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuriositet/pseuds/kuriositet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crispus does not leave for the mountains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In This Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kantarin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kantarin/gifts).



> This story is a sort of ALTERNATE ENDING to the Castus/Crispus story in Free To Love. It's mainly an alternate story to A Good Man, in which Crispus did flee to the mountains. Look at it as an alternate turn of events. I hope it's not too confusing.
> 
> I was asked to write a Zip Me Castus/Crispus drabble, taking place before the final battle.
> 
> Gratitude as always to Yasmin for reading it and putting up with me <3

Castus returns to his tent after the meeting with Crassus and his men, and is surprised to find it already occupied. His heart soars for a brief moment, then seizes within chest for time is running short and Crispus was meant to already be long gone, seeking refuge beyond the mountains.

“I could not go,” Crispus says, stepping forth. His eyes are wet with tears and Castus reaches out to wipe the ones that have fallen from his cheeks. “I was not given chance to say proper goodbye. I could not go.”

Castus hushes him, stroking his face, running a hand back through Crispus’s unruly curls, and does not fight it when the young man tugs him into a desperate kiss. 

“If you leave now you can still make it to the mountains,” Castus says upon breaking the kiss. “Take a horse and you can catch up with the others.”

“The horses are needed in battle against Crassus.” Crispus gets a determined look on his face. “I’m staying. My place is by your side. In all things.”

“Yet I would have you live.”

“What life would that be that had not you in it?”

“A free life,” Castus replies. “A long life, in which you will meet many men and women who will be eager to give you their hearts, and one day you shall give yours in return, and I pray that man or woman will understand just how blessed they are.”

Crispus smiles, yet there is a tinge of bitterness to it. “Explain to me how I am to give my heart to someone if I leave it here with you.” Castus cannot. “Then do not ask me to leave you. Ask me to stay.”

Castus wants to. He wants to ask Crispus to stay and to have him at his side as long as they both live. He wants them to stay right here in this tent where they can forget about all the death and pain and sorrow lurking around the corner. Castus is a selfish man, yet he has tried so hard to be better, for Crispus, for Nasir, and by extension for Agron and Spartacus.

“Stay,” he says, and Crispus responds with a heated kiss. “Don’t leave.”

“I will follow you to the very end.”

They do not get much sleep. Castus falls in love again and again with the way Crispus gasps at the touch of Castus’s mouth to his chest, and the way he clutches at Castus’s shoulders and how his abdomen grows tense when his release is near. He falls in love with the half-whispered promises Crispus bites into his flesh, and the way Crispus’s hair tickles his skin, and the way their bodies fit together in ways he never expected.

They rise before dawn. Actions rather than words speak their thoughts as they carefully dress one another, Crispus finishing by fastening Castus’s armor to his shoulders. The armor possessed by the rebel army is limited, yet when they search for it in the tent set up as armory, they find more than expected. 

“There is yet time for you to go,” Castus says, kneeling down to fasten shin guards around Crispus’s legs. “You can make it to the mountains.”

“Not without you.”

Castus doesn’t argue, just carefully straps on the shoulder guard, pulling the buckles tight around Crispus chest. “Which weapon should I choose?”

“The spear,” Castus replies without hesitation, reaching for the weapon. “Nasir is a better teacher than I.” 

“He is not,” Crispus says, laughing as they step back outside where the sun is slowly rising. “He is only far less distracting.”

“You turn to flatter? At a time like this?”

“You do not?”

Castus would; he would tell Crispus that no sea he has sailed, no matter how bright and blue and clear, would compare to the beauty of his eyes. He would say that it matters not what words Crispus speaks, because any plea or command falling from such lips would be obeyed in a heartbeat. Yet he does not.

“I would rather make promise,” he says, turning Crispus towards him. “That I will find you, when the battle is over, in this life or the next.”


End file.
